


overheat you from the inside out

by warsfeil



Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: Gender or Sex Swap, M/M, boy akito, but not 2001 akito, handjobs, just manga akito but a boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:47:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26621623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil
Summary: Akito is listless. He’s sprawled over the table in the room like it’ll let him escape the oppressive humidity of summer, but there’s no breeze across the night sky to help lessen the heat. His kimono is half off his shoulder, the expanse of pale shoulder blending in with the white fabric. Under the light of the candle, he’s like a portrait, greyed out at the edges and lingering past the borders.akito/shigure in which akito is a boy but their relationship doesn't change at all.
Relationships: Sohma Akito/Sohma Shigure
Comments: 5
Kudos: 34





	overheat you from the inside out

**Author's Note:**

> this work is based on the idea of akito being a boy, and what that would change within canon in regard to his motivations. it is still based on the full manga canon, not on dying anime boy disease 2001 akito!

Akito is listless. He’s sprawled over the table in the room like it’ll let him escape the oppressive humidity of summer, but there’s no breeze across the night sky to help lessen the heat. His kimono is half off his shoulder, the expanse of pale shoulder blending in with the white fabric. Under the light of the candle, he’s like a portrait, greyed out at the edges and lingering past the borders.

“Shigure,” he says, and stirs. Shigure steps over to him, kneeling down when Akito reaches out for him, and Akito presses himself closer, closer, until he’s resting against Shigure, head pressed against Shigure’s chest despite all the heat.

“Akito-san,” Shigure says, politely. It’s a fine line to walk, with Akito’s capricious moods: how much is Shigure allowed to push, how much is Shigure allowed to do before he hits the wall of resistance? 

“You always come so late,” Akito murmurs. 

“Isn’t it better, to come when it’s cooler?” Shigure asks. Akito scowls, but it isn’t directed at Shigure: it’s directed at the heat. Akito’s head goes to Shigure’s shoulder, and Shigure drags his fingers across the back of Akito’s neck, the skin damp from where the heavy fabric was pressed against it.

“It isn’t cooler,” Akito says. “I want to see you more. Come more often.”

Shigure thinks about pointing it out -- that Akito had kicked _him_ out after a particularly spectacular fight; that Shigure could come more often if he didn’t have to spend his days writing to pay his bills instead of living off the Sohma allowance like everyone else -- but he didn’t come here to rehash old fights. Instead, he lets his fingers drift around, presses across Akito’s throat. Akito tilts his head obligingly, because there’s a deep strung implicit trust between the two of them. Shigure would never hurt Akito; Shigure would never hurt his god. 

“You could invite me over, you know,” Shigure says, and Akito frowns, even as Shigure tilts his chin up to face Shigure again. “I have this ingenious invention called a telephone…”

“Shut up,” Akito says. His hand grips Shigure’s kimono in vague warning, but the gesture is useless: it’s too hot and he’s too lethargic to maintain it, and he drops his hand to Shigure’s thigh. “I don’t want to call and get… that girl…”

“Tohru-kun isn’t so bad,” Shigure says. Akito’s eyes flash, and Shigure compensates for the push with a reward: drags his fingers back down Akito’s throat, down Akito’s shoulder. Shigure pushes the fabric off until the weight of itself makes the kimono fall backwards. It doesn’t reveal much of Akito, given how he’s laying across Shigure, but it makes Akito’s eyes fall half-lidded. “Strangely enough, I’m usually the one to answer the phone. The one that I pay for.”

“She’s not one of us,” Akito murmurs, but there isn’t the heat in it that there could be. Shigure has been careful in how he plays his hand on this, and right now it’s easier to drag his thumb across Akito’s collarbone, to wrap back around and ghost across his shoulder blade. “It’s a waste of time to deal with someone like that.”

Shigure doesn’t think so, of course; there’s a world of possibilities in people outside of the zodiac, but he supposes it’s a bit hypocritical of him, given that at the end of the day the person that he’s the most focused on is still Akito. Akito, who so desperately clings to them, who shoves away everyone else that might possibly infringe on their careful, guarded world. 

It’s astounding that Shigure managed to negotiate Tohru’s presence in the house at all, really.

“Youth is full of mistakes,” Shigure says, with a careful shrug of his shoulder. Akito tilts back, pulling his arms free from his kimono and letting the fabric pool on the floor. Akito leans up, and his lips are cool against Shigure’s, his body fighting the heat with a desperate kind of futility.

“This will only make you warmer,” Shigure murmurs, but he reaches out, wraps his arm around Akito to support his thin frame. 

“I don’t care,” Akito says, discarding the facts he doesn’t want to hear as easily as ever. It’s fine: Shigure doesn’t want to debate weather, doesn’t want to wrap them up in a discussion neither of them feel like having.

Shigure could blame the heat, if he wanted to. He doesn’t bother to say it, doesn’t try to deny responsibility for the way he presses his mouth to the side of Akito’s neck until Akito’s eyes go dark and his pulse beats so vividly Shigure can feel it on his lips. 

“If you leave marks,” Akito says, “I’m telling Hatori.”

“Will you?” Shigure murmurs. He doesn’t leave a mark; just moves his mouth down to the junction of shoulder and neck, drags his teeth across bone. “Do you show off the marks I leave you?” 

“No,” Akito says, but he lolls his head back when Shigure worries a mark into his shoulder. Akito may not brag about the marks, but he wears them like a prize: proof that he is wanted, that he is much a possession as he is possessed. 

Shigure would cover him in red if it meant Akito could believe he was loved.

Shigure presses him down, instead; Akito goes willingly, but doesn’t release his grip on Shigure’s clothing. The tatami mats aren’t any colder than anything else, no escape from the heat. The door is open; Shigure doesn’t bother to close it. No one would bother Akito like this, and even if they did -- he would only relish in the proof that Shigure wanted him. 

Akito doesn’t wear underwear half the time -- which isn’t surprising, given he tends to minimize his layers to the absolute least he can do to maintain modesty -- and he isn’t this time, stripped down and laying back on his discarded clothing.

Probably, Shigure shouldn’t find him attractive, but Shigure hasn’t ever had a say in the matter. Akito is all angles, pale skin stretched over the hard corners of bone. He’s too thin, he’s too frail; Shigure could pick him up with one arm. He’s beautiful, though, with his dark eyes and his hair sticking across his forehead and the flush of heat-arousal-anticipation bleeding pink down his chest, down into his cock.

“Am I still,” Akito says, quietly, reaching up to cup Shigure’s face in his hands as Shigure leans down over him, “the one you love the most?”

“Yes,” Shigure says. He presses a kiss to Akito’s palm, and watches Akito’s eyelids flutter. He doesn’t look happy -- just love isn’t enough, anymore -- but Shigure thinks the agreement is a temporary painkiller, something to drive away the worst of that insecurity and darkness that lurks within him. 

“Show me,” Akito demands. Shigure wonders what it’s worth, if you get something only when you demand it, but Akito has always been shortsighted and terrible at seeing what’s right in front of him. 

Shigure leans in, presses his mouth to Akito’s throat, to his collarbone; he presses kisses down his chest, and Akito’s hands go to Shigure’s hair, tangling into the strands and arching into the heat of his mouth. Akito is demanding, but he gives way when it comes to intimacy: he reaches and holds and waits, but he never demands more than Shigure is willing to give. 

Granted, there’s not much Shigure isn’t willing to give him. 

Shigure isn’t a gentle lover. Not compared to some people. He’s certain that Kureno is more than doting enough, and the thought makes him sick, because Akito has always wanted the kind of thing that forces the noise in his head to quiet, forces back all the thoughts of god and zodiac and allows only the white noise of life. Shigure presses too hard across Akito’s hips, leaves a line of raised marks down the inside of Akito’s thigh, and Akito takes all of it, groans at the sensation of Shigure’s lips on his skin and Shigure’s fingers bruising down into his muscle.

“Shigure,” Akito says.

“You’re impatient,” Shigure says, and his voice is a chastisement because he knows for a fact that not even Akito’s temper is going to get the best of him _now_. 

“It’s too hot to drag this out,” Akito says, and his nails scrape across Shigure’s scalp when Shigure licks a stripe up his thigh and nowhere else. 

“You can take a bath later,” Shigure murmurs. He moves back up, bracing a hand on either side of Akito, and Akito looks up at him, gaze dark and a sheen of sweat over his body that looks golden in the candlelight. 

Akito doesn’t bother to dignify that with a response. He moves his hand down to tug Shigure’s obi off, to push Shigure’s clothing off. Shigure doesn’t make it easier, but he doesn’t make it any harder, either; Akito has to sit up to do it, and he looks annoyed by the effort, leaning in to press teeth to Shigure’s shoulder once he’s bared.

“You act like you don’t want to be here,” Akito says, and there’s the bite of anger in it, because anger is easier than fear, than sadness. 

“If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be,” Shigure says. Akito leans up, and Shigure sits back to let Akito perch onto his lap, spreading his hands across Shigure’s torso. 

“Is that why you’re here so rarely?” Akito says. 

“Akito-san, you kicked me out,” Shigure says, mildly. 

“You fucked my mother,” Akito says, his voice a bland monotone at odds with the bite of the words. 

“Hmm,” Shigure says, because it isn’t like it’s a _lie_. “It doesn’t feel nice, does it, when someone you care about sleeps with someone else?”

“That isn’t the same thing!” Akito’s anger is a fire, and Shigure wonders if it makes him hotter. Akito isn’t at an angle where he can hit Shigure, not really, so he just drags his nails down Shigure’s chest hard enough that it leaves red trails. “You’re mine, you’re all mine, I can do what I _want_ \--”

“Sure,” Shigure says, and catches Akito’s wrists. Akito isn’t strong; Shigure can hold both of Akito’s hands in his without difficulty, and even when Akito tries to wrench away, the futility only makes his face twist in anger. “You’re god. You can sleep with all of us, if you want. I’m sure Yuki-kun would be thrilled.”

He shifts Akito’s wrists into one hand, and in an easy, quick motion, he shoves Akito back against the floor hard enough that it takes the wind out of Akito, makes him inhale on a breath instead of managing to speak. There’s no fear in Akito’s face; Shigure will never move more than Akito allows, and the fact that he’s able to do any of this is because Akito allows it, on some level. 

“But that doesn’t mean I won’t be angry about it,” Shigure says. “I told you. I’m not the sort of person that shares something he wants.”

There’s a flush high on Akito’s cheeks, because for all that Akito demands to be loved, he never knows how to _handle_ it when it’s genuine. Shigure will give it to him, and he relishes the fact that it seems to set Akito so off-kilter.

“I know, I know,” Shigure says, before Akito can manage to snap something appropriately caustic. “I’m the worst, right?”

“Yes,” Akito says, and reaches down to grab at Shigure’s hip, to slide his hand around until he’s got hold of Shigure’s dick. He palms it and something in Akito shifts, like he needed the confirmation, like he needed the proof that Shigure still wants him. 

Shigure shifts, wraps his own hand around Akito’s dick, and Akito groans into it. His anger doesn’t melt away; it just transforms, finding new life in the way Shigure drags his hand up and down, no real pace save for the slow touch.

“Akito-san,” Shigure says, and Akito looks at him. His breath is hitching, stuttering on every inhale-exhale, the red across his cheeks and the water in his eyes, that angry desperation starting to leave him wrecked. Shigure wants to see more of it; he wants to drink it down. 

“Shut up,” Akito breathes. He reaches up to pull Shigure down, to tangle a hand in Shigure’s hair and move the hand on Shigure’s dick. “Shut up, shut up, shut _up_ \--”

Shigure shuts up. He shuts up Akito, too; he kisses him, and gets bitten for his efforts, but that’s all Akito manages before he’s panting into Shigure’s mouth, eyes screwed shut as his hips jerk into Shigure’s grip. Shigure turns into Akito’s neck, and he hopes the mark he leaves there is taken exactly how it means: _this is mine_ , he thinks. 

“Ah--” Akito’s stamina has never been great, and despite the amount of time he spends draped over one member of the juunishi or another, he always seems shockingly touch starved. Shigure doesn’t bother to draw things out too long, and it doesn’t take much before Akito is jerking, hand stilling as he comes hot over Shigure’s hand. Shigure strokes him through the aftermath, and then changes his grip, wrapping his hand around Akito’s to keep it moving over his cock. 

“Don’t be rude,” Shigure murmurs, into Akito’s neck, and Akito shivers, gaze glassy, but doesn’t respond more than that. He seems to sink down into the floor, going boneless; he groans underneath Shigure with Shigure’s own movement, like it’s still him getting jerked off, like he’s still the one getting pleasure from it. 

When Shigure comes, there’s a world of blinding possibilities, for a moment, and he experiences all of them: the satiating contentment that rolls through his veins like a living creature, blotting out all the facts and flaws of reality, rendering them unimportant in the face of pleasure. 

It ends too quickly, of course, and Shigure is left with the aftermath. The hot, sticky aftermath. Akito flings his arm up over his face once it’s over, and lays there, still but for the breaths that make his entire chest heave. Shigure goes down onto one arm, traces invisible patterns across Akito’s stomach. A dog, a cat, a fox, a flower. 

“I want a bath,” Akito says, finally. 

“Then take one,” Shigure says, amusement coloring his voice. He reaches up to run his hand through his hair, and his hair stays that way, slicked back, and he makes a face at it.

Akito shoots him a withering glare that would be a lot more intimidating if it wasn’t being directed at him from the floor. “Take me there,” Akito says, and Shigure glances to the side like he’s considering it. (He isn’t. He knew this was going to happen, but he isn’t going to tell Akito that.)

Shigure lifts Akito up, shed kimono and all, and Akito rolls into it. Shigure does not bother to put on any clothing, and frankly, any maids bothering to stick around Akito’s quarters this late at night when they know Shigure is visiting deserve any accidental nudity they might witness. 

There aren’t any maids for the entire journey to the bathroom, and Shigure sets Akito down and leans over to fill the tub. He hears the water turn on behind him, and when he glances back, Akito is sitting under the spray, the water cool to the touch as it runs down his body. Shigure sits behind him, drags a finger down his back and feels the residual heat in his skin. Akito doesn’t move, only opens his eyes to glance backwards, catlike, and then ignore the situation.

Shigure doesn’t like being ignored.

“Here, I’ll wash your back!” Shigure says, and it’s a brighter sing song than necessary, but it gets a scowl out of Akito and absolutely no resistance when he sets about washing Akito’s back, washing his hair. Akito leans his head back on Shigure’s shoulder, eventually, and Shigure takes the opportunity to look down the course of his body, the marks left behind. Akito has more than Shigure, but Shigure was nicer with his, which is information he files away in a neat mental folder full of things he’s going to get revenge for in the future. 

“Will you stay the night?” Akito asks, finally, when Shigure scoops him back up to drop him in the bath. The water is hot, and Akito flinches away from it as he settles down into it. “It’s hot.”

“If you take a cold bath, you’ll get sick,” Shigure says. There’s some vague science behind it that he remembers from an exasperated explanation Hatori gave him once -- hot baths are better for feeling cool, due to human blah blah blah -- but it doesn’t matter. “Do you want me to stay the night?”

Akito sinks into the bath, legs sliding over into Shigure’s section even though there was plenty of space. He keeps his nose above water and not much else, long bangs floating like some sort of horrifying sea creature. 

“I’ll go home if you want me to,” Shigure says, and Akito’s eyes drift away, but his leg moves, hooking around one of Shigure’s. _Or not_ , Shigure thinks, but doesn’t say. Akito gazes out the window, and when he eventually pulls himself back out of the water, he sways on his feet from the heat. He slides into Shigure’s arms, and then shoots Shigure a glare when Akito finally notices exactly how many marks are across his body and where. 

“You’re so annoying,” Akito says, but he lifts his arms to drop around Shigure’s head, and Shigure hefts him up again. It’s not exactly an easy series of maneuvers, to get Akito dry and wrapped back up in the lightest cotton he can manage and then get them both to bed without ever fully detaching from Akito, but Akito makes minimal concessions to the situation and they get there in the end.

Akito leans in, when they’re in the futon; he doesn’t bother to get under the blanket, just presses closer to Shigure until Shigure wraps an arm around him.

“You’re always gone when I wake up,” Akito murmurs, softly. Shigure can see how tired he is, from the thick sound of his voice to the way his limbs seem too heavy to move, and Shigure thinks that this is when Akito might be at his most honest. 

“You frequently tell me to get out of your sight,” Shigure reminds him, and Akito blinks slowly before he closes his eyes. 

“I don’t understand you at all,” Akito says, and then he’s asleep, hand curled up into Shigure’s robe and mouth partially open. Shigure stays -- longer than he should, probably -- because it’s a cute picture, and like this, it’s easy to pretend things are different.

Shigure allows himself the delusion, for a moment: that there was no curse; that he and Akito met under different circumstances. That Shigure could have fallen in love naturally, slowly, instead of all at once and forever, unrelenting -- that Akito could have been happy from the start, satisfied and secure. If Akito’s mother had never disparaged the bond; if there was no bond to break at all. 

Shigure tucks the blanket around Akito before he leaves, and Akito frowns in his sleep.

-

Shigure is doing a great job at not working at all, which is something he prides himself on. The telephone rings, and he drops his pencil back down onto the table.

“Yes, yes,” he says, to the empty house, the kids at school and only the cicadas outside to keep him company. The phone is as much a form of procrastination as anything else -- assuming it isn’t Mitchan, at any rate.

“Hello?” Shigure says.

“Shigure,” Akito says, slow and careful.

“Wow, Akito-san,” Shigure says. “This is a surprise. Did you learn to work a phone just for me?”

There’s a long silence that Shigure is pretty sure Akito weighing the options of just hanging up, but that would be admitting defeat and a bigger hit to his pride than anything else.

“Come see me again,” Akito says, and hangs up. Shigure smiles. 

He’ll have to leave a note for Tohru, that he won’t be home for dinner.

**Author's Note:**

> so, to answer my own question -- "what would change" -- the answer is "shockingly little except akito doesn't hate all girls, just, you know, anyone that isn't the zodiac". i have an entire au in my head about this now, so feel free to talk to me about it on twitter @warsfeils!


End file.
